Abstract: Communication over the i.i.d. Rayleigh slow-fading MAC is considered, where
all terminals are equipped with a single antenna. Further, a communication
protocol is considered where all users transmit at (just below) the symmetric
capacity (per user) of the channel, a rate which is fed back (dictated) to the
users by the base station. Tight bounds are established on the distribution of
the rate attained by the protocol. In particular, these bounds characterize the
probability that the dominant face of the MAC capacity region contains a
symmetric rate point, i.e., that the considered protocol strictly attains the
sum capacity of the channel. The analysis provides a non-asymptotic counterpart
to the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff of the multiple access channel. Finally,
a practical scheme based on integer-forcing and space-time precoding is shown
to be an effective coding architecture for this communication scenario.

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